Reaper

Executive producer Casey Hudson calls Mass Effect 3 the pinnacle of the trilogy. It’s the payoff at the end of the long winding road that saw Commander Shepard become a Spectre, defend the Citadel and stopped a Reaper plot that targeted humanity.

In the upcoming finale, everything comes to a head early on as Shepard faces a committee on Earth discussing his choices in the previous games. Suffice to say the top brass likely won’t be happy. During this hearing, the Reapers attack, wreaking havoc on the planet. They’re giant spaceship size robots that kill everything in sight. There a lot of deaths, and Shepard fights alongside Alliance officer David Anderson (voiced by the awesome Keith David) to survive.

The CW is making a few tweaks to its midseason schedule, one of which is an earlier return for “Reaper.”

The second season of of the devilish dramedy will now debut on March 3 (instead of the 17th). That’s the good news for “Reaper” fans. The bad news is that it will air at 8 p.m. against “American Idol” as The CW will bump back “90210” to 9 p.m. in order to get it out of “Idol”‘s path of destruction.

“Reaper” will still air its 13 episodes straight through, without repeats as originally planned.

To make way for “Reaper,” The CW also accelerated the season finale date for “Privileged.” The show will conclude Feb. 24. The network has yet to decide whether the drama will return next season.

The CW also announced that the Jonas Brothers will act as hosts for a night of “90210” and “Privileged” on Feb. 10. On that night, they will offer a sneak peek of their new film, “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience,”in theaters Feb. 27.

ABC, which recently axed three dramas from its roster, has a lot of holes to fill so get ready for the arrival of “Castle” (March 9) and “Cupid” (March 24), and “The Unusuals” (April 8).

“Castle” is a light mystery-drama starring Nathan Fillion (“Firefly,” “Desperate Housewives”). “Cupid” is a remake of a short-lived 1999 romantic comedy. And “The Unusuals” is a new cop show featuring Amber Tamblyn (“Joan of Arcadia”) and Harold Perrineau (“Lost”).

ABC has also announced that ” Primetime: What Would You Do?” will debut Jan. 6. It’s a hidden-camera reality show — something I know we’ve all been dying for.

In today’s Times, I’ve got a column about the lessons we learned from the writers’ strike. Also included with the piece is an extensive chart that details the various post-strike plans by the networks — when (and which) shows will return and how many fresh episodes they’ll be producing.

We must warn you, though, that not all the networks have made official announcements and that plans could change. In fact, since the chart went to press, The CW officially announced return dates for its shows (info we didn’t have on the chart). Here are those dates: